The Dreamcatcher in the Wall
Great and Powerful Terms, Pt I
If there was one thing Trixie Lulamoon hated, it was looking for things to buy in the back alleys of big cities, no matter how clean and well-lit they were. It made her feel like she was doing something illegal or amoral, even though she wasn't. At least, she didn't think it was, and it was the fact that these kinds of places fed that nagging doubt that grated her nerves the most about it. However, Trixie felt like she didn't have a choice in the matter. The truth she could not escape facing no matter how hard she tried was that thanks to Twilight Sparkle, her show business was ruined. And though she had since tried to make a living doing honest work, the fact of the matter was that she didn't know what she was good at off the stage, a problem exacerbated by nearly everypony's refusal to hire her after she was exposed as a fraud. Consequently, she barely made enough to feed herself from day to day, and often lost what little work she could find to other, more qualified ponies who weren't mistrusted by default.
Over time, she had lost nearly everything she had due to having to sell her possessions to go on living. Eventually she had only her cape and her hat to her name. The former of these she would not give up because it served so many purposes beyond its decorative one. She could use it to carry things, to sleep in during those happy occasions when she could find shelter, and if necessary, to sleep under if she used her magic to stretch it out a bit for use as a tent. The latter she held onto desperately, for she felt it was the sole thing holding her mind and heart together. She put great effort into putting on airs to the contrary, but she lived each day a hair's breadth away from completely losing it.
This terrible state of living naturally led her into depression, from which she sought to escape by any means she could manage. In a stroke of irony that would likely have driven her mad had she known a little more about her archnemesis, she found that refuge from her reality in books. Thousands of pages passed under her gaze as she engrossed herself in intense study of the past and enchanted herself with the stories of fictional works. Often, she would root for the main character's rival, even though after the third book, she knew how things would turn out. This naturally made her even more depressed, so she turned instead to legends about things, rather than ponies.
Upon reading these legends, and finding the place of the Alicorn Amulet and the Elements of Harmony among them, Trixie had found herself weighing the potential consequences of pursuing them. Prior to her encounter with the former, she had thought that she had nothing left to lose and only the possibility to gain. She had learned since then that she could still lose the most important thing she's ever had: her identity. This lesson had led her to the conundrum that she faces to this day: she knows that she has one, but she has long since forgotten what it is. It was a question she had found herself asking since she first encountered the headline to the newspaper with a scathing article about her, every time she caught herself looking in a reflective surface and seeing the desperate, despairing stare of a slowly starving blue unicorn on the other side.
"Who is Trixie Lulamoon?" she would often ask her reflections and shadows out loud, not caring about who might be watching or listening as her grip on reality slowly drifted away.
However, Trixie had not lived in isolation for as long as she had by being the type of pony that let despair defeat her. There was a solution to every problem, a way out of every terrible situation. Even, she imagined, if that situation was a pony's whole life, as hers was now. In her mind, that way was one of these artifacts of legend. Even if the artifacts themselves failed to solve her problems, she reasoned, then at least revealing her capacity to find things thought lost forever might be a way to attract potential employers. It was with that thought in mind that she scoured the sorts of books that the Amulet and the Elements had appeared in. Eventually, she found an item that reminded her what hope felt like, one which should in theory both be powerful enough to set her on the path to saving herself and good enough to avoid the humiliation of having it taken away from her accompanied by a firm scolding about how she's supposed to behave by spoiled ponies with easy lives, like Twilight.
The Destiny Compass.
The basic principle behind this item was its intent to help ponies who were struggling to gain their Cutie Marks learn more about who they were so they could focus on their special talents, make a nice little living for themselves, and be on their way to happiness. There were of course, catchalls involved here. Exactly how the compass was intended to accomplish this feat was never made clear, nor was its description. Consequently, Trixie had found herself wandering from one antique shop to the next to ask about it, traveling from town to town in search of herself. She couldn't afford any improved forms of transportation, so she was relegated to hoofing it. As of yet, however, none of the dealers could help, and in fact very few had ever heard of the Compass.
However, as had been with her search for an item like the Compass in the first place, Trixie's encroaching despair was once again staved off by the ignition of another light at the end of the dark tunnel she seemed to have spent so long plodding through. One of the dealers made mention of his supplier in Canterlot, a pony rumored to be nearly as old as Luna, and who often charged in fees other than bits and gems. However, locating this pony's business was tricky: it was only open at night, and its entrance was hidden in a wall that would look fairly nondescript during the day. Luckily, the dealer told her, there seemed to be some affinity between the proprietor and the world of dreams, so if Trixie dreamed of it, she might have better luck finding it.
So it was that Trixie found herself sitting in a Canterlot alley one evening, hoping that whoever owned that lovely tulip garden would forgive her for using it to break her three-day fast, while at the same time staring intently at the most easily-overlooked place in the capital city as the sun set behind her and wondering if anypony would notice if she never returned from it. But then her growing shadow revealed a door that she was certain she would have noticed being there previously, and she shook off the dark thoughts and prepared herself for her entrance. This one deal could make or break the rest of her life, so she was going to make it her grandest yet.
The Dreamcatcher in the Wall
Great and Powerful Terms, Pt II
Somber Star was not the kind of pony who felt anything strongly enough for it to properly earn the title 'hate', but among those things that came closest to earning it were bright lights and loud noises. Especially when he was sleeping, as he was until about ten seconds ago when a thunderous impact struck his door. The sound startled him awake, causing him to kick out all four hooves before quickly tucking them back in and righting himself. Remembering the time dilation aspect of his protective quarantine, he stopped to concentrate for a bit, focusing his magic energies on suspending Princess Celestia's spell. It was terribly exhausting work, but it was the only way he could interact with other ponies.
That done, he teleported to his doubled front door and pressed the side of his head against it, listening for more sounds from outside. He had believed the first to be some kind of attack, but there was no follow-up despite the first impact having failed to breach them. There were nothing to hear, however, so he curiously tried to push the doors open -only to find them barred from the outside. Panic and despair clawed at his heart, along with the feeling of having been abandoned, but he pushed them away with determination and shoved the doors harder. This time they practically flew open following a loud thud and some shuffling. The open doors revealed a... probably light blue unicorn who was just getting back up from what looked like a nasty fall.
"Beholllld.... I am the Grrrreat and Powerful, er..." the mare said by way of introduction as she stumbled to and fro in her attempts to regain her senses. Her horn made little pink fireworks and Somber couldn't discern whether they were the result of her head injury or part of the act she had planned and seemed unaware wasn't panning out. "It's um... hold on, I got this one!"
"Oh I am positively quivering..." Somber deadpanned, unaware of just how much he'd be swallowing his sarcasm just moments later.
Intent on sorting out the matter in as little time as possible, he teleported outside -another jarring experience, due to the aforementioned quarantine. After getting his bearings straight, he saw that just outside his front door was quite possibly the single most powerful Personal-class Nightmare to retain an ethereal state. Exactly why it had yet to fully consume its victim and change her identity to host its own was a mystery he didn't care to solve. Using his Dream Magic, he blasted the Nightmare with everything he had at the moment. Given his own near-constant exhaustion, and its having fed on its victim for what had to have been years, he could not have hoped to win a battle of raw power. However, with surgical precision, he blasted away some of its bonds on the mare's heart, and eventually it weakened enough for him to pull it out of her and carry her inside. He still had to quickly slam the door in order to prevent it from retaking her, and he wouldn't be able to release it until either she recovered enough to fight it off herself, or her friends and family came and found her to fight it at her side. In the meantime... she was going to need some care, as she was in pretty bad shape.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing with me?" Trixie demanded of the stallion as he hauled her inside through some kind of barrier and slammed the door, making a quick departure seem highly unlikely. Did she just get abducted? Would anypony notice? Would anypony care?
"Just showing some basic professional hospitality. I'm amazed you're alive, but you definitely need some help." he replied to her as he trotted deeper into his home/ artifact warehouse. "Don't worry though, I have some things that should fix you up in a jiffy."
The mare was dirty and disheveled (and thankfully not bleeding), and smelled like she'd gone for weeks without a bath, thus guiding his first action for her. Fortunately for her, the bath in his home was like a great many of the items he stored and sold: a magic artifact from a time when such things were made in great quantities. This one was a liquid light spring intended to appeal to Princess Celestia, who could not be consoled so recently after losing her sister to the Nightmare within her.
Trixie tried to protest taking a bath with a male present, but a number of things led her to passing out as soon as she relaxed just a little. First there were her barely-sated hunger, thirst, and exhaustion. Secondly, she did just inflict a minor head injury on herself. And finally, here in his presence she felt two things that were pretty rare for her: safety and comfort. The burgeoning guilt and crushing feeling of self-uncertainty that had been making it impossible for her to relax for years had finally been pushed away. These last reminded her of when she first started embellishing the tales of her power to her audiences, and especially of when she started believing them herself. Now, however, the feeling was more pure. Warmer. It was all but impossible to resist closing her eyes and just slipping away into the peace of the moment.
Multi-tasking with his magic, he carried the unconscious mare to hover over the bath and filled it, while pulling out some contemporary soaps and shampoos, as well as an unused mane comb and a coat brush, all of which he had received as gifts or payments from other clients, from various nooks and crannies in the immediate vicinity. Then he removed and hung up her patchwork hat and cloak before lowering her into the tub.
Trixie awoke to a variety of sensations, some of them new and all of them pleasant. Far more than those that had guided her to sleep, which were now rapidly escalating her suspicions. It was an experience completely alien to her life, so she panicked and flailed. Whatever she had been submerged in flew everywhere, but she could still feel it clinging to her like some strange kind of water. Her head was still kind of fuzzy and it ached a little, especially much of her face. The rest of her, on the other hoof, felt great and it was freaking her out. She noticed that her outburst had elicited a surprised reaction from somepony behind her and whirled around (scattering even more of that strange fluid) to face him.
"No, wai-GAH!" he'd shouted, as her antics had thrown some of the liquid light directly into his face. He didn't close his eyes fast enough, and while the material itself didn't hurt, it was still light directly in his eyes. Light which he couldn't get back out of his eyes simply by closing them, so her first sight of him was him rolling around on the floor just outside the bath with his hooves over his eyes, and light faintly coming out of them.
"Well! That should serve you right, intruding on a lady's bath! What's the matter with you, anyway? You some kind of pervert?" Trixie half-shouted at the stallion, then pausing to wonder why she was even in a bath in the first place. The last thing she remembered was throwing herself at a door hidden in an alley wall with the intent of bursting in full of grandeur, then remembering too late that outer doors opened to the outside. She gasped. "You put me in this bath! YOU ARE SOME KIND OF PERVERT!"
"Your gratitude is duly noted..." Somber muttered back, somehow managing sarcasm at a point where any kind of thought would elude a normal pony. He was still trying to get the liquid light out of his eyes, and at least now he knew why the market for it failed. "I will remember in the future that the next time I see a half-dead mare wandering in a dark alley, the polite thing to do would be to leave her there and go about my business. What were you even doing outside my home, anyway? Most ponies don't even know it exists."
Trixie was about to retort, but in the absence of her self-righteous offense, she found herself deflated. The more rationally she thought about it, the more she realized that she couldn't fairly blame him for the way he reacted to having found her at his door. In fact, she had to admit that she was surprised he didn't just leave her there and go about his business. She had collapsed from exhaustion at other ponies' doors before, and woke up later either in the same place or only moved so that she would be out of sight or in some cases just out of the way. The idea of somepony caring, especially for her, without being self-righteous about it was strange enough that Trixie found it unnerving and more than a little suspicious.
"I came looking for an artifact... something powerful, maybe even enough to save me..." she narrowed her eyes at him. "Why are you being so nice to me, anyway? What are you planning to get out of this?"
Somber glared right back at Trixie, offended and a little confused that she would ask such questions.
"Dear mare, have you never heard of common decency?" he asked of her, meeting her gaze evenly.
"I have, and that certainly wasn't it! What you've done for me could hardly be called 'common'!" she all but shouted at him, and he broke off the staring contest to look at the floor off to one side.
"That's... most certainly one of the saddest things I've ever heard. Even the notion of hospitality for traveling artists is dead or nearly so..." he perked up, remembering why she said she was there in the first place. "Anyway, let's talk about that artifact. What was it, exactly, that you were after?"
"I'm looking for the Destiny Compass. I need it to find my way to truly living again." Trixie said, switching over from suspicious indignation to outright pleading. "Please, you must have it. I don't think I can take being told to go somewhere else again!"
"Well, incidentally... I do have it." he said as he backed away from her. Pony nature being what it was, she followed, and the light of hope in her eyes made what he was going to have to tell her absolutely heartbreaking. "It's right in front of you, in fact."
"Really? That's outstanding! Please, give it to me! Name your price, I'm sure we can work something out!"
"No." he replied firmly and coolly, but oh Harmony, the tears. It was so hard to stare at such a pretty face and know that he made her cry, that he was threatening to shatter all her hopes.
"Please?"
"I cannot."
"Why not?"
"You can't afford it."
"But I was told you usually don't take bits!"
"I don't."
"Then what do you want from me? I need that!"
"I know! Ok? I know... it's just that I can't give it to you."
"Why not? You said you have it, that it was right in front of-" a light went on in her head as pieces started falling in place. "It's you, isn't it? You're the Compass."
"Not quite." he replied, then ignited a little light on the tip of his horn, which he then made flow down its length until it struck something Trixie couldn't quite see. "It's this."
"What are you talking ab-" Trixie gasped as she saw what he was trying to show her: a strange and dull-looking horn metal ring was wrapped around his horn, but it was too small and all but fused into the alicorn keratin surrounding it. She didn't want to think of what that implied, but he told her anyway.
"You see? This is it. The Destiny Compass, which I found as a foal, in a time before worn magic articles included proper size adjustment. It is useless to me now, and has been for years, but in order to give it to you, I would have to cut off my own horn."
It was a bitter pill for Trixie to swallow. For a unicorn, such mutilation was worse than death, and to inflict it on oneself was an act of madness. In times past, it was one of their race's greatest terms of love to say that one would give up their horn to be with someone they cared for. Of course, that has since fallen by the wayside, since it was unreasonable for anyone who actually loved a unicorn to expect them to do it. She began to cry, a lot. This latest loss was the figurative straw that broke the camel's back, only rather than a straw, it was more like a cinder block. She couldn't take anymore, and decided to go find someplace where she could end it all without bothering anypony. To that end, she took off toward the door of the establishment owned by the pony who'd broken her heart for the last time it could take. Driven by her emotions, she galloped terribly swiftly -and found herself colliding with Somber just a few feet away from the door. He had teleported in front of her and was now blocking her path.
"WHAT NOW?" she screamed at him, taking some solace in that he was clearly uncomfortable with what he'd done to her. She was glad for it, and hoped that this encounter would haunt him with countless sleep-deprived nights as he wondered what he could have done better.
"I uh... can't let you leave just yet. It's waiting for you out there." Somber answered, his entire demeanor truly deserving of his name. Trixie was just about to ask exactly what was waiting for her when she saw something that looked like a three-dimensional shadow of a claw reach through the door for her, until he blasted it with a strangely-colored aura and it retreated. "I'm going to need you to wait here until your friends or family arrive. If you tell me what they look like, I can help them find this place."
"I have no friends... or family..." she said as she started crying again. Yet another time had arisen where she needed something that she didn't have, and couldn't hope to have. She flopped onto the floor where she once stood as depression threatened to sweep her away. This time, however, the stallion who had taken her into his home reminded her of his presence. He flopped down to move his face level with hers (and also because it was one of his favorite motions) and smiled sadly at her.
"Hey. That makes two of us. Want to do something to fix that? I can teach you Dream Magic, and maybe you can tell me stories of the modern world?"
"The modern... wait, how long have you been in here?"
"Nearly a thousand years, with some odd breaks here and there."
"But you look so young! Are you immortal?"
"No."
"Imprisoned then?"
"After a fashion, yes. I am quarantined here, until a cure for my... condition can be found."
"Condition? What condition? You look and sound as healthy as-" She clamped up as he sat up and pointed to his chest. There, in its center was a star-shaped patch of the blackest coat she had ever seen aside from on Nightmare Moon. Looking him over, she noticed that though his coat was gray, it seemed like it wasn't supposed to be. There were thin, semi-transparent streaks of blue that were barely visible, leading up to his dark-blue and gray mane. "What happened to you?"
"It's a long, and very sad story."
"I've got time." Trixie said as she looked over his shoulder at the door and wondered what value she could even put into going through it again anyway. "In fact, I don't have much of anything else at this point."
"Ok then. It all started over a thousand years ago, back when the Royal Sisters first ascended to power. Times were hard then, but much more livable than when the likes of Discord and King Sombra reigned..."
The Dreamcatcher in the Wall
A Case For an Outcast, Part I
With each passing hour in the Judge's chair, Twilight regretted pestering Princess Celestia for more responsibilities just a little bit more. The task of presiding over a litany of civil lawsuits -mostly among Canterlotians, but also including upper-crust Manehattenites and Las Pegasi- and a handful of petty crimes would only be mind-numbingly tedious if the average pony was capable of basic logic, but alas, that appeared to not be the case. The plaintiffs and their attorneys almost always acted as though the defending party's actions were as grave as say contributing to the return of Nightmare Moon, even though the vast majority of cases revolved around accusations of slander and libel and the "criminals" were more often than not unaware of their words or actions being offensive prior to the trials. Consequently, Princess Sparkle spent the day wondering how her mentor kept a grip on her sanity while dealing with this for over a thousand years, especially without any emotional support like the kind Twilight had from her friends and family.
The only thing that kept Twilight awake to the last trial was Princess Celestia's playful offer/threat to "let" Twilight help with managing Equestria's distribution of funding if running a court proved to not be sufficiently engaging for her. The last trial, however, was a severe breach of the preceding pattern of boredom and nagging leading up to it, like a cliff at the end of a long road with potholes in only the most inconvenient places. Twilight snapped fully alert when she identified the defendant, which was seconds before the bailiff began reading off the trial introduction from a scroll.
"The Court will now address the case of The Ponies vs-" the bailiff began, looking as bored as Twilight felt, as though in his eyes this last case was no different from any other.
"TRIXIE!" Twilight shouted, her flaring temper losing steam to the way the blue unicorn flinched away from her voice. For that matter, so did most of the other ponies in the courtroom, and with a few seconds of reflection, the new Princess realized that she had unintentionally used the Royal Canterlot Voice.
"-Lulamoon." The bailiff used those seconds to continue, eerily unperturbed. "The defendant is facing a number of charges, including-"
"WHAT THE HAY DID YOU DO THIS TIME! HOW MANY SECOND CHANCES DO YOU NEED?"
"... unlicensed ownership of a potent magical artifact, unlicensed use of Dark Magic, hostile acquisition of Equestrian territory, assault on a Princess, assault on Equestrian citizens, and willful endangerment of a town populace, and of their property. Four of these charges also count as High Treason. Recom-"
"Wait wait wait," Twilight interrupted the bailiff for the third time. Everypony looked at her. "Is this about that incident with the Alicorn Amulet? That was almost two years ago! Why is this case only being brought to court today, and why as the last possible item on the docket?"
"There was... some debate among the general populace regarding the ethical merit of pressing charges..." the prosecuting attorney responded hesitantly, sweating bullets and adjusting his collar with a hoof. "The residents of Ponyville refused to push the case to court, citing lack of concern. Further, claims that the Amulet was controlling the defendant make it difficult to ascertain how much credit for her actions go to her."
"Okay... so why are we bothering with this at all? She wasn't in control of her actions, the residents of Ponyville don't care and most likely wouldn't remember her name if asked-" Twilight paused momentarily as she noticed Trixie cringing again, this time in response to the forgotten name bit. (How odd), she thought, losing track of her protest of the trial.
"With all due respect, Your Majesty," the prosecutor began, trying to phrase his response to maintain the image of the maximum possible guilt for the defendant. "Regardless of her excuses, the defendant has confessed to a series of capital offenses. Her actions cannot simply be brushed aside! She MUST answer for her crimes!"
"I see." Twilight responded, mustering as much patience as she could manage. To distract her mind away from allowing the sheer inanity of this case being the cherry on top of the huge parfait of ridiculous things she had to put up with in this room, she wondered why "Patience" wasn't an Element of Harmony. "Tell me, what were the actions recommended to me as a response to these crimes?"
"Well, you see Princess, given that she committed a number of capital offenses, only proportionate retribution has been selected."
"Such as...?"
"The most popular sentence among those voting is Execution. Of course, Life in Tartarus and Exile to the Badlands have also been proposed and are widely accepted alternatives. We only wish to see justice served."
"Who exactly constitutes "we", and why are you so interested in seeing a homeless pony die or worse?"
"Why, the Founder's Committee, of co-"
"I am not exactly homeless." Trixie said, breaking the spell of her unnervingly long bout of silence and replacing it with two mysteries: her use of an appropriate speech pattern, and how exactly she managed to find living arrangements. But those were a matter for another time.
"That's not the point, Trixie." Twilight corrected the blue mare, her exasperation slowly overcoming her efforts to distract herself as she gradually became aware that she couldn't. "The point is it appears that what I'm looking at here is a case of the social elite looking for an excuse to legally justify abusing the inherent rights of a pony who is not one of them. And worse, trying to get me to sponsor that abuse. If that is not the case, then please, Mr. Open Docket, explain to me why I got that impression."
"Your Majesty, please," the attorney begged as though he were the one on trial. Then again, at this point, he might as well have been. "That mare is a vile criminal! She does not deserve the basic rights Princess Celestia has granted to ponies because she has deprived other ponies of those same rights!"
"Mr. Docket..." Twilight started, leaning a cheek against her left forehoof and treating the courtroom to a thoughtful glare. "You stated previously that the defendant confessed to her crimes, did you not?"
"Yes, Your Majesty. Even she is aware of her own guilt."
"Really. Then I request that you summon the officer who received her confession to the stand as the first witness."
"What? But you can't-"
"Do it!"
"...at once, Princess."